It took some time for the new defensive system to sink in and for the Bruins to make the necessary adjustments to get the lineup executing the plan, but people are starting to see what the Black and Gold are going to be this season.
Obviously, they are not going to win every single game or be riding a five-game heater as they are right now, but the formula looked pretty solid again Thursday night for the Bruins in a 3-2 overtime win over the Ottawa Senators at TD Garden.
Once again, they scored enough to win with Morgan Geekie, Sean Kuraly and Pavel Zacha stepping up to the offense providers in the victory, and it looked like Charlie McAvoy was determined on the winning shift to make sure the Bruins came away with two points against the Sens.
Bright Lights goes sicko mode and Zacha ends it pic.twitter.com/ZcBU1dlomT
— Marina Maher (@marinakmaher) November 7, 2025
But the bottom line is that the Bruins have locked things down defensively while allowing 11 goals in their five consecutive wins, a trend that Marco Sturm believes is going to be sustainable for the B’s this season.
“Yeah…hopefully. The one big thing with our team is the play without the puck. I think that is something we should be consistent with,” said Sturm. “With the puck, it’s challenging. We don’t have a lot of goal scorers and we have to work for it. Again, these guys worked so hard for it [in the win] and it will be a challenge all year long. The power play, that is why it is so important for us.
“But our play away from the puck, I think, should be our bread and butter moving forward for the whole season.”
It was something that Sturm made no bones about during a recent, animated talk with his team between periods that seems to have sunk in with his group.
Telling players what they need to hear is a hallmark of a good hockey coach. Marco Sturm and his staff doing a heck of a job https://t.co/T1bmhV6SxC
— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) November 7, 2025
And the results are playing off, as the Bruins sit in the third spot in the Atlantic Division with 18 points and a legitimate chance to still be in a playoff spot come Thanksgiving-time at the end of the month, where roughly 80 percent of the teams in that position stay there at the end of the regular season.
Clearly the offense is going to be the question mark for this group, but Geekie scored his 10th goal of the season on Thursday and is on pace to clear 50 goals this season at the rate he’s currently scoring at. And Zacha, amidst some trade rumors involving him, is on pace to top 20 goals and 70 points this season after slamming home the loose puck rebound for the game-winner in last night’s victory as part of a second line with Viktor Arvidsson and Casey Mittelstadt that has absolutely been good enough thus far this season.
“We held the puck a lot in overtime and kind of waited for their mistake, so I’m glad it all worked out,” said Zacha, who felt like he redeemed himself after losing an offensive zone faceoff that led to a Geekie tripping penalty and wiped out a potential power play in overtime. “I think we are getting better at [the defensive system], for sure. Earlier in the season I think we were giving up too much in the middle of the ice, and I think we are getting better with it every game. We are priding ourselves on keeping other teams to the outside, but it’s also something we can keep getting better at this season.”
The other big part of the defensive renaissance has been 26-year-old Jonathan Aspirot’s insertion into the B’s defensive lineup along with the return of Hampus Lindholm, who now has the Bruins at a gaudy 7-1-0 this season when he suits up and plays for the Black and Gold. Aspirot has played in five games logging between 14-16 minutes of ice time as a third pair guy with Henri Jokiharju, has been a minus just once in those five games and has provided some physicality, as he did on Thursday night, throwing a Senators skater into the Boston bench during the game.
“All the coaches, I think, had a positive idea about him in our minds because of his preseason,” said Sturm of Aspirot, who had a strong training camp for the Bruins before making his NHL debut this season at a bit of an older age. “A lot of times I look at chances against and he doesn’t show up in a bad way because of his skating mobility, his core, because its strong and thick, and because of that he closes quicker than other guys. He competes…he competes hard. I give him that. He fights for his job every day and that’s something I really like about him.
“There are guys that when they play a game or two, and then they breathe a little [and relax], and I don’t see that in him. It just shows me that he doesn’t want to give that up right now and good for him.”
It’s still going to be a while before the increased defensive aptitude is reflected in the team stats as the Bruins still rank a rancid 24th in the league with 3.31 goals allowed this season, a number that will flatly not allow them to get into the playoffs if that continues this season. But the last handful of games, including a couple against playoff-caliber competition like Carolina and Ottawa, are showing a Bruins team that is capable of defending at a much higher level than they showed early in the year during a rough six-game losing streak.
“We’re going enough ‘right’ things to hang into games, and if you do that, you’re putting yourself in a spot to get points and that’s what it’s all about,” said Kuraly. “We’re eliminating those major mistakes that ended up in the back of our net during the losing streak, and maybe made things look worse than it really was.
“We’ve kind of honed in a couple of areas of coverage in the defensive zone and the neutral zone, and I think that has really helped us.”
Amazingly enough, the last three wins of the B’s streak have come without goals from David Pastrnak and just a single point from him during that stretch, a testament to contributions coming from everywhere and good overall hockey being played. The Bruins will have to keep it going if they hope to prove it’s sustainable, but there’s no reason to believe it isn’t based on a winning streak steeped in defensive discipline and just enough offense.